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https://docs.google.com/document/d/18S8napVtXWr46pElKXpiZnqkcGHqgyJVeuxJLE7U-TI/edit?usp=sharing

My partner and I have continued to incorporate topic based conversations into my learning plans, some of these being: summer plans, the Korean election, and our favorite genres of music. These have continued to be effective in creating a casual atmosphere whilst pushing me to speak about topics I usually wouldn’t in my target language. But besides the topic based conversations, I have also begun to go over lyrics to multiple songs with my partner every week. This wasn’t initially in my learning plan, but I realized that many English artists incorporate word play or have a selection of words that enhance the music. The same must go for Korean artists, and it's interesting to actually read the lyrics, since for Korean songs I’m usually less focused on the lyrics unless it's a ballad/romance song. But especially for rap, which is sometimes incoherent, reading the lyrics allows me to see what the artist slipped in a verse here and there, or the wordplay in general. Reading these lyrics aren’t going to make me instantaneously better at Korean, but they definitely help with comprehension and pronunciation.

I don’t plan on adding anything substantial to my current learning plan as we are nearing the end of the semester, but I think it's important to continue to practice my Korean both with and without my partner. I continue to listen to Korean radio shows using KBS Kong, and watch numerous Korean youtubers in my free time. Kind of off topic, but one channel I’m watching right now is Korean Zombie’s channel, a MMA fighter, who is going through different cities in Korea to find challengers, many of whom end up being street fighters and therefore no match. But they thoroughly interview the people that show up on the show, and it’s always interesting to listen and try to completely comprehend what they are saying.

For this month’s language learning we didn’t move as fast as other months because communication was a little harder over spring break. However, I felt like we made good progress for my standards especially with increasing my vocabulary more and just getting a better understanding of how some grammatical things work with certain verbs. I think that currently my biggest challenge is forming grammatically sound sentences and conjugating certain verbs in which I don’t have any recognition of, so that’s something my partner and I really wanted to try and focus on this month. Which is why I’ve been doing assigned practice HW (some) from the resource PracticePortuguese, but I should be doing more to really cement my learning between meetings.

To start, one of the main themes of vocabulary my partner and I worked with was around the house vocabulary. I had really wanted some more knowledge for everyday reference, and we thought that common household items and things which are used every day would be helpful. We started by simply learning some words and studying from a PowerPoint. Some common words included: concha, jarra, chaleira, peneira, vassoura, and avental. We worked with these words just in a basic sense and then did some picture association exercises where I’d fill in the blank of words based on their pictures. My favorite word by far was vassoura, or broom in English, because I have begun to use that word within my own kitchen now. The hardest word was escumadeira, or skimmer in English, because I was just unfamiliar with that in general. All in all these exercise just helped me to expand upon my knowledge of the language by getting exposed to new words, and helped to expand my vocabulary which I can further reinforce hopefully in daily activities.

The second component of this month’s learning was focusing on the main verbs of the language estar, ser, and ficar. This involved differentiating the differences between estar, ser, ficar in Portuguese and how to conjugate each of them in different scenarios. The key thing that stood out to me from the start because of my Spanish background is that I was familiar with ser and estar, but ficar was completely foreign to me. As it turns out, it’s actually extremely common to the Portuguese language. It can be used a lot informally to basically say anything from “staying”, “continuing”,“renting”,“combined, and more. For example, I could say “Fica conmigo”. This means Stay with me. Or, I could say “Onde fica a tua casa”. Which means where IS your house? The same word can be used to mean multiple things like keep, to be, become, stay, etc. This is very different from Spanish as ficar doesn’t really exist. Now, all three of these verbs are very similar and can take on overlap in meaning, but it’s important to try and distinguish when to use which. From my understanding, one uses ficar when it’s associated with change, and estar when talking about temporary traits or qualities. As for ser, you use it for describing inherent qualities, but ficar actually can’t be used for that and can only signify “becoming”. This still kind of confuses me, but I’m aiming to work more on it in the coming months. These 3 verbs are central to the language and forming conversations, so it will be more of a focus to come.

Overall, this month was the slowest of the months due to logistical issues, but I still feel my partner and I made great progress. I definitely learned a lot and continue to progress which is always a good thing. In the coming month I hope to become more conversational as my number one goal.

My learning highlights from these past few weeks include making Korean recipes using Korean YouTube tutorials. In particular, I have been enjoying Chef Baek Jong-Won’s recipes. Baek Jong-Won is a famous South Korean chef who owns several restaurant chains and hosts several Korean television series including Top 3 Chef King, Baek Jong-won's Food Truck, and Baek Jong-won's Alley Restaurant. As someone who enjoys cooking and eating Korean foods, my language partner and I decided that it would be a good idea to learn how to comprehend and follow directions in Korean by following along with Chef Baek’s Korean food cooking tutorials. 

We decided to follow Chef Baek’s kimchi-jjigae recipe. Kimchi-jjigae is a classic Korean stew dish made with kimchi, pork or seafood, scallions, onions, and diced tofu. It is one of the most common stews in Korean cuisine. While I understood what the ingredients were in Korean, I found myself struggling to understand Chef Baek’s specific directions on how to prepare the ingredients. I also found it difficult to understand his heavy South Chungcheongnam-do dialect. South Chungcheong Province, also known as Chungnam, is a province of South Korea located in the Hoseo region in the southwest of the Korean Peninsula. As someone who grew up hearing the standard ‘Seoul’ accent from my parents, it was interesting to hear the tonal differences between Chef Baek’s pronunciation and what I am accustomed to. Although cooking a Korean recipe was not a part of my original learning plan, I think it was a good language comprehension exercise for me. 

To practice my hangul writing, I started texting my language partner in Korean, using commonly used words and phrases. Texting was a new challenge for me because I kept making mistakes with the spacing between the words. It was also difficult to type certain words that were difficult to spell.  For example, I misspelled the word “괜찮아” when trying to say “it’s okay” because it contained multiple characters in chunks. I found myself heavily relying on the auto-check function in my phone to fix these mistakes but it was good texting practice for me and my language partner corrected my spacing errors. 

Filial piety, which is called ‘hyodo’ in Korean, is defined as supporting and serving one's parents and is a natural duty of a person. Filial piety is a mutual relationship between parents and their children. In Korea, however, under the influence of Confucianism, more emphasis is placed on a child’s filial duties toward their parents. Grandchildren are also expected to have filial piety and respect for their grandparents. ‘Hyodo’ is a natural emotion and a way of fulfilling filial obligations at the same time. Children must repay their parents with filial piety in return for giving them life and raising them, although this is not a transactional thing. Parents give their children the three “gracious favors” ('eunhye') of birth, upbringing, and wealth while children are expected to carry on the family line, support their parents, and observe memorial rites after their death. The things inherited or passed down from parents including wealth, social status and human relations are at the core of the institutionalization of filial piety. This moral standard is a large part of Korean culture and can be seen in many Korean dramas and movies. In Korea, it is not uncommon to see multi-generational families living under one roof where the children support and take care of their parents and/or grandparents.

For this week’s cultural post, with the suggestion of my language partner, I will be taking a deep dive into the puzzling popularity of American TV show Everybody Hates Chris in Brazil. Everybody Hates Chris is an American TV show created by Chris Rock that is supposed to be based on memories from his teenage years. The show portrays “Chris” in his adolescent years and life within his African American community. The show was rather popular in the US but ultimately stopped running in 2009. Before it’s finale, the show was nominated for 3 Emmy’s and 1 Golden Globe. However, the popularity in America doesn’t come close to what’s seen in Brazil. To this day, the Brazilian population and community are avid watchers and fans of the show.

Before doing this post, I reached out to São Paolo native and Richmond student Pedro Alves de Lima to see if this phenomenon really exists. He confirmed that this is in fact a cultural thing in Brazil. He stated how the show offers something different than the normal telenovelas in Brazil and works to portray a different background of the people. This makes a lot of sense and can be clearly seen through my research. Actress Tichina Arnold, Rochelle on the show, is actually one of the most (if not the most) famous American Actress’s in the whole country. On numerous visits she’s been treated like royalty, drawing thousands of adoring Brazilian fans to come see her. This popularity isn’t just relegated to her on this one show, but the show Wife N Kids, where Tichina also stars, was voted as the second most popular show of its kind in Brazil recently. At any point in time, fans of the show can be seen repeating her famous lines as Chris’s Mom and her recognition is undeniable. Moreover, she’s mentioned her Brazilian following in multiple interviews within the US. It’s quite fascinating to see this popularity and it’s something the average consumer of the show would have no idea about. The same experience is true for actor Tyler James Williams (Chris) who has a huge following as well. On multiple occasions when he was creating his Instagram, he actually deleted his profile because his comment section was overflooded with Portuguese and he wasn’t quite sure what to do. It’s something the whole cast is mostly on record being surprised and appreciative about, but why did the show get so big in Brazil is the main question still?

In Brazil, one of the main forms of entertainment are long-form serial narratives, or better known as telenovelas. The shows draw in millions of domestic viewers and people across the globe in more than 120 countries worldwide. A lot of Brazilian culture and imagery comes from these types of entertainment, and the series have served as a primary source for what it means to be Brazilian globally. The main issue with them, however, is that have shown that the country’s most important television genre of shows has historically underrepresented Brazilians of color. In addition, many also maintain that the telenovelas worked to produce a symbolic good that emphasizes whiteness as the ideal social marker. This works to explain the differentiation of Everybody Hates Chris. It offers the people of Brazil a show that prominently features a culture they don’t often get to see in the manner of comedy. It’s take on the normal American family, mixed in with comedic factors, and its focus on the colored community, all drive to boost the popularity of the show in Brazil.

Overall, this was extremely interesting to learn about and something I would’ve never known without researching. It’s amazing how cultures can differ and what becomes popular within certain places. I’ve included some sources below and some social media posts of fans from Brazil.

Sources:

https://www.jstor.org/stable/26744312?seq=1

https://www.flowjournal.org/2013/03/everybody-hates-chris/

Social Media:

https://twitter.com/ajclassic/status/1328033103202414594

https://twitter.com/ajclassic/status/1328038268592590849?s=20&t=0RKMt-Ov9npvV7QQyYKmVA

https://twitter.com/ajclassic/status/1328046792294998021?s=20&t=0RKMt-Ov9npvV7QQyYKmVA

During Spring break I had the opportunity to visit my childhood best friend in Baltimore, Maryland. My previous language partner, Somyung, actually gave me a ride there on her way home for the break. We had a great conversation in the car in Korean and I learned a lot about her family.  I had so much fun and we did so many different activities that I decided to write down everything we did for each day in Korean. I later showed my writing to my language partner and even my parents to ask for feedback but also share with them the experiences and memories I had with my friend Saera. One thing I really love about Saera’s family is that they speak in a dialect in Korean that is located in Busan. The way they would say a certain word or the tones they used to speak is different from the Seoul dialect. I had so much fun learning and listening to this dialect and also found myself later using some of their words to speak. 

I continued with reading the “magic” book and wrote my ten grateful things to exercise in Korean each day. I also wrote a reflection about what I read in the book for the month in korean. I had a conversation with my parents and they wanted to help out with my Korean language learning. They told me to research and write about the famous figure skater Kim Yuna. They told me I had to research using the Korean language and I cannot use any American sources. 

This task was very challenging for me because I never tried researching things in korean. Also, although Kim Yuna was a famous figure skater, I think my parents chose this topic because I had no knowledge about her at all. They thought it would be challenging but also a fun prompt. 

It took me a couple of days searching for information about Kim Yuna because I had to do it all in korean and also read and interpret the websites in korean. I also took a while to gather my thoughts and write an essay reflection. I figured out how much harder it was writing about a prompt than actually talking about doing it. 

I wrote an inspiring essay that explained about Yuna’s life and her hard work that came from a lot of practice and dedication. I sent the essay to my language partner to get some feedback on grammar and then sent it to my parents. My parents read over it and commented on how to rephrase some of the sentences. But overall, they were very proud of the work I have accomplished. They even stated how I am becoming a true korean student which made me very excited.

I think I would want to continue to develop my writing skills by challenging myself to answer another prompt. Researching the information in Korean actually helped me to develop my reading skills and actually using that knowledge to write an essay helped me formulate a more educational writing.

The highlights of this month include eating Korean BBQ, listening to a Korean podcast, and finishing TTMIK Level 1 and starting on TTMIK Level 2. The Korean BBQ experience was unique and memorable. Not only was the food scrumptious, it was a nice get-away from Richmond, VA and explored Northern Virginia. Our group decided to go to SO BBQ and it was located in a small shopping center with a variety of Korean shops including a herbal shop, milk tea shop, a bakery, and other American shops as well. We made a reservation at 5:30pm on a Saturday evening, and I was not expecting the place to be busy. However, the place was packed with BBQ smoke filling the air and happy faces all around. When we arrived at our table, there were bonchon (small side dishes) arranged neatly, and we were ready to feast upon them. My favorite side dishes were the pickled radish and pajeon (Korean style pancakes). Our goal during this meal was to try a variety of meats including bulgogi, samgyeopsal, squid, shrimp, and even intestine! My favorite was the squid and the bulgogi because I love seafood and the marinated beef was delicious when paired with rice. I was not a huge fan of the intestine because it was difficult to chew, but at least I tried. Overall, it was a great experience and I had a great time with Somyung and Peace. The best part of the trip was that the University generously reimbursed the meal and the drive!

This month, I learned the conjugation for future tense, and surprisingly it was not as difficult as I thought it was going to be. The conjugation was consistent depending on if the word stem has a batchim or not. Compared to past and present tense conjugation, the future tense is a lot simpler to conjugate. However, the one part that I am starting to get confused on is the order arrangement of the sentences. I know that the Korean sentence structure follows SOV (subject-object-verb), but where does time and location fit into the sentence structure? 

Additionally, I learned the characters for “and”, “with”, “and then”, and “but”. These were helpful characters to learn because they exist in daily conversations. Furthermore, I hear these words the most when I listen to Korean youtubers, podcasts, and movies. Therefore, these are helpful words to learn to speak conversational Korean. The most recent lesson I learned is telling time and learning the days of the week. The days of the week were not difficult to learn, but the pronunciation is a bit harder for me. The reason was because most of the names I had to bring the batchim over were combined with the character (yo). The pronunciation isn’t natural to me so it takes me a few tries. Telling time in Korean combines their native Korean numbers and sino-Korean numbers together. The hour number uses native Korean while the minute number uses Sino Korean. 

In this month, I also tried listening to everyday Korean conversations through a podcast on spotify to help me with listening skills. The beginner conversations were incredibly helpful, but I wish they were a bit longer. I listened to Real Life Conversations in Korean, which I found out was produced by TTMIK! 

I thought March was quite eventful, and the most memorable Korean-related activity during this time was eating KBBQ with Somyung and Peace. I hope that we can do more social activities in the future to engage more with Korean culture and not only the language.

There is a slight cultural difference in gift giving holidays between Korea and the U.S. - on valentines, it is mostly girls that give gifts to guys, whereas in the U.S. it is usually the opposite. However, there is another day in Korea called White Day, which was just a week ago, and on that day reciprocal gifts are given. But mostly guys receive gifts from girls. The tradition started out in Japan in the 1970s, where supposedly men were given marshmallows as reciprocal gifts for Valentines, but as time went on, various white colored gifts were given, and now there are no specific limitations - just tradition. Such traditions spread to most of east Asia, like Korea and China. It occurs on the 14th of March, a month after Valentines, but it's interesting to see how Korea has developed unofficial romantic holidays for the 14th of every month. 

Here is a list of the holidays I’ve found:

January 14th - “다이어리데이” - Diary Day: New diaries are exchanged between couples.

February 14th - “발렌타인데이” - Valentines

March 14th - “화이트데이” - White Day

April 14th - “블랙데이” - Black Day: Where single people eat 짜장면(Black Bean Noodles).

May 15th -  “로즈데이” - Rose Day: Couples wear yellow clothing and exchange yellow roses.

June 14th - “키스데이” - Kiss Day: Give your partner kisses

July 14th - “실버데이” - Silver Day: Exchange of jewelry.

August 14th - “그린데이” - Green Day: Soju time.

September 14th - “포토데이” - Photo Day: Couples go out to take photos.

October 14th - “와인데이” - Wine Day: Celebrate relationship with wine.

November 14th - “무비데이” - Movie Day: Watch movies.

December 14th - “허그데이” - Hug Day: Give each other hugs.

These days aren’t anything of big significance, but they are an interesting representation of Korean culture. Perhaps when I am in Korea I’ll be able to witness couples partaking in these holidays.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vCdX7MKS6v4EilDC5NoKYCW0ftpQGvA0t66_KK2nIPw/edit?usp=sharing

     For our SDLAP meeting, we decided to watch Midnight Runners, which was a Korean comedy film. This movie is about two young students in Korea’s Police Academy to train as officers. They have a hard time taking some of the training seriously because some of the movements the professors teach them seem childish. For one night out, these two young trainees witness a young woman being kidnapped in a dark alley way, and chases after the car. They were unable to catch the car, so they thought about their police training and returned to the place where the crime scene occurred. The young woman was carrying a bag of tteok-bokki on her way home, and she dropped it when she was kidnapped. The two trainees investigated origins of the tteok-bokki, notified the nearby police station, and contacted their professor. They were told to stop investigating privately and let the higher ups take care of it, which would take a couple weeks before an investigation begins. The two police trainers could not way that long since they were told during their training that the first seven hours of the crime is the most crucial in saving the victim.

     They continued their private investigation and found that the incident was part of an illegal egg harvesting farm where young women were kidnapped so that their eggs can be harvested. They found the hiding spot of the kidnappers and attempted to rescue the women held hostage. However, they failed to rescue them because the kidnappers found out and a fight broke out. The two police trainees returned to the academy and decided to train relentlessly because they know the women are in danger. Once it was time, they decided to confront the kidnappers, but this time, they are in a hospital parking lot. The kidnappers are delivering the girls to a fertility clinic that was also part of the illegal act, and now the eggs are going to be harvested without their consent. Just before the surgery, the two police trainees broke in and halted all operations and managed to knock out the boss unconscious.

     The two police actions’ must be reviewed by the police academy since the trainees were not officially police officers and did not have the legal right to try to catch the kidnappers. However, the police academy took the trainees’ bravery and courage into account, and they held them back one year and assigned 500 community service hours for both the police trainees.

     This movie allowed me to examine aspects of Korean culture such as the food, Korean police academy, other cultures within Korea, and city-wide surveillance. The bag of tteok-bokki that the woman was holding is a famous dish in Korean culture. It is commonly known as “rice-cakes” for Westerners. This is a dish that is commonly served during special occasions or on a regular basis. They are normally cylindrical and soft mixed in with an orange sauce, and other toppings can be mixed in as well.

      When the two police trainees were trying to locate the illegal egg harvesting farm, they found themselves in a small nook where the words on the signs of shops had Chinese characters. This area was sketchy, and the taxi driver warned them to not enter this area because it is known for crimes. This scene shows that there are other cultures present in Korean society and may have in influence in Korean culture. For an example, the delicious dish called jajeongmyeon is a fusion dish between Korean and Chinese culture. In Chinese, this dish is called zhajiangmian.

     Overall, I quite enjoyed this movie because it was hilariously and serious at the same time with a beautiful ending. Korean movies and entertainment system is gaining popularity all around the world, and I hope to do a cultural analysis on other awesome Korean movies in the future.

This past couple of weeks, I continued improving my reading skills with the book called “Magic” translated into Korean. My favorite exercise this month was day 5. This exercise was about gratitude for health. It had short excerpts explaining how health may seem very simple and unimportant in our daily lives. But it is the main root to how we function and do our daily tasks. Staying healthy is very important and we should be grateful for it instead of taking it for granted. The book describes how there are so many people who were born with a disease or deal with health issues throughout their lives. Reading the list of possibilities that could have happened to me, made me realize how I also took my health for granted. This made me very grateful and started changing my routines to a more healthier lifestyle. 

Another exercise that I thought was fun was on day 3. The book instructed you to find a rock from outside and place it by your bed. Before you go to bed you would be thankful for finishing the day and reflect on what happened. When you wake up in the morning and see the rock you could be thankful for being able to start the day in a positive mood. 

I couldn’t find a rock on campus that was pretty so I used a heart stress ball that I got from the dean and carried it around with me. There were times throughout the week where I just wanted to complain and stay in the negative mindset. But the heart ball in my pocket helped me switch my thoughts. It was hard but I tried to stay positive. 

I continued to write daily the ten things I am grateful for in korean. I think writing in the language daily helped me practice a lot and get more comfortable with it. However, there were vocabs that I still was not sure how to translate yet so I had to look them up. I think to improve my writing skills even more I would have to try writing different prompts. I noticed that the list of ten sentences I write every day were very similar and used the same words. I asked my language partner to give me some prompts I could write about and enhance my thinking skills. 

Instead of doing diaries and reading books, I wanted to try something new and be able to think in the language to improve my writing and reading skills. I believe I could truly advance in the language when I can deeply think in the language and be able to come up with my own answers and thoughts that are different from the usual answers to prompts. 

I spent a lot of time with Vivian and also went to a korean church to keep practicing my speaking skills. Even though my goal is to improve my reading and writing skills, I thought it was important to not forget how to speak in the language.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZLH29mqL75uyloeBjgOk8NE7ZhUvP5zRjyKCeYUgy3I/edit?usp=sharing